Brian completely surprised me on V-day with an unexpected gift -- the highly coveted Canon EOS Rebel T1i. I have been drooling over this camera since early 2010 when it came on my radar. But at the time, I had a totally functional little Sony Cyber-shot that fit all of my needs, so no need to upgrade. But then Scotty got ahold of the Sony and all went to hell and this past Monday, the Canon walked into my life...and changed it forever.

So I know virtually nothing about photography. And even after reading the entire booklet provided by the good people at Canon, I still know nothing. Regardless, I trotted the Bear, my new camera, and a chai tea latte out to the park for a serious photo shoot this afternoon, and here are the results.

Also, you might notice Scotty's new haircut...it is waaaay short. The barber got a little clipper-happy, and before I knew it, Scotty was shorn like a little sheep. It took a few days for us to get used to it, and now I kind of like it. He looks like a Marine. Or a bouncer. We've started calling him "The Enforcer." ID's please.

My little photo journal:

On the drive to the park, as we stopped for gas.

Zoolander Face Bear

At the park. Small bear in a big world.

Wee Bear

Scotty analyzing the gravel.

Thoughtful Bear

Peering out from the train.

Blue-eyed Bear

Tunnel Bear.

Cylindrical Bear

The Mayor, waving to voters.

Political Bear

Let's play with as much gravel as we can, and then truck it home and rub it in Mom's couch...

Our trip to Santa Monica was a smashing success. Have I mentioned I love 16 months? It's really the greatest age, ever. Aside from an early wake-up time (and Brian and I tip-toeing through Adam and Tiffany's house, begging the Bear to please, please be quiet), this is an ideal time to travel. (car travel...not sure how the Bear would be in the friendly skies. We're not going to find out).

I mean, he is down to one nap, which makes scheduling easier, and was a delight about 90% of the time. The other ten percent was spent screaming in the bath, running from the 60 pound bulldog that had an unnatural affection for our little guy, and screaming his head off from Barstow to Vegas. (and his defense, it was a long time to be in a car seat. I felt as though his protests, though annoying and ear-splitting, were justified.) But I'll take 10% bad as long as there is 90% good any day of the week.

As promised, Scotty also had a lot of firsts.

First meal at Chik-Fil-A:

It's so delicious I can barely contain myself

First time living with a dog for more than 24 hours...

The charismatic Teddy Bullfeathers

...although you may be saying to yourself right now, "Hmm...that's the second picture we've seen of Teddy, but the Bear is nowhere to be found." And the reason for that is Scotty was scared out of his mind of the dog. He didn't cry, but the two were like opposite ends of a magnet; if Teddy went this way, Scotty went that way. The only safe zone was the dining room and Scotty spent a lot of time in there.

I think it was the combination of a very large animal (something Scotty has no experience with) along with the loud noise Teddy's nails made as they clattered along the (gorgeous) hardwood floors. Big sight + loud sound = one nervous Bear. By Saturday, Scotty had warmed up considerably and would venture within about 2 feet of Teddy, but that was about it.

And finally, his last major first: seeing the ocean for the FIRST time ever. What a lucky kid. I didn't see the Pacific Ocean until I was in my 20s. (one of the pitfalls of growing up in Chicago, I guess.) It was cold, as you might glean from what we are wearing, but it was so fun to see him shuffle through the sand and gaze at the big, blue sea. And not to fear, the Cheerio cup was there for moral support. (of course).

The Mayor hits the beach

Sand Bear

Okay, I'm done.

But aside from Scotty enjoying the beach, I think my favorite part was going with Adam and Tiffany and seeing how happy/sweet they were with our little guy. Evidence below.

December 29th will always be a special day for me, since two years ago, I saw this for the first time:

The first sign of the little Bear

Of course, I didn't believe it (or the three First Response tests I had taken that morning) so I took about 17 more.

But the test was right. And by December 29, 2009, we had this to show for it:

Wee-Bundled Bear

And of course, we all know the story. Our little guy continues to grow and change, and today brings us this:

Please-Pass-the-Salt Bear

Scotty has hit yet another milestone that excites parents and just about no one else. He's in a booster seat! Wa-hoo! He looks like such a big boy sitting at the table by himself.

Gone is the high chair and the endless clean-up; now I get to scrub our table and his little seat after every meal. I have officially moved the broom into the kitchen for permanent residency, since there are more scraps on the floor than I can pick up. Is it time to get a dog yet?

(I would like to thank my sister for all of her help in the selection of the booster seat. The Fisher Price Healthy Start chair in green/blue was ultimately the winner, which now means Scotty and Ben not only have the same Little People's Farm and head circumference, but also the same booster seat. Hooray for cousins!)

So happy December 29th to all of you. I wonder what December 29, 2011 will bring??

We travel to Sin City to confront a sixteen month old toddler about his Cheerio addiction.

His mother contacted us recently and said his addiction has been going on for almost two months. The family is starting to go bankrupt trying to support his habit. He refuses to go anywhere without his Cheerio cup. And if you try to take the cup away?

He gets very, very angry.

I-don't-have-a-problem Bear

The toddler refuses to take any accountability for his behavior, and has even begun to attempt to disguise himself while he engages in his habit. Our cameras followed him for a day and caught him in the car doing this:

Whatcha-lookin'-at-Bear

And then defiantly doing this:

Nom nom nom!

When we tried to talk him, he simply turned his head and refused to answers any of our questions.

Catch-ya-later-Bear

His habit is hurting more than just himself.

Says his mother: "While I'm concerned about the incredible amount of Cheerios he eats per day, my biggest gripe is that I'm constantly stepping on them and it's ruining my clean floors."

His father declined to comment.

And probably most telling, friends are being neglected.

We were once so close...

But despite everyone's efforts and intentions, I think it's time we call in the professionals. After all, we have a crisis on our hands.

Like every other red-blooded American male, he waited until the last minute to buy gifts. But Pottery Barn was having a sale. Score!

Window shopping Bear

After shopping was done, Scotty and Brian checked out the very large, very "ball"-filled Christmas tree.

(quite possibly one of my favorite photos, ever)

Scotty even stopped for a quick Cheerio break and a snuggle with Momb-Momb. (yes, I've been upgraded from just "Momb" to now "Momb-Momb." Warms my heart.)

Snuggle Bear

We had some very festive Christmas BBQ at our favorite restaurant and then headed over to the Ethel M Chocolate Factory to look at the lights on the catci. Remember this from last year? One of my favorite things we did as a family. Chocolate and botanical gardens just go hand-in-hand, in my opinion.

Since it was Christmas Eve, the gardens were exceptionally crowded. We had to park almost two blocks away, and as Brian was loading the Bear into the stroller, he made a face. And then declared, "Either he just made a poop or just had a horrible toot."

I frowned. The place looked jam-packed and the last thing I wanted to do was wrestle our little Bear from his coat, shoes, pants and dirty diaper to change him on what was likely a very gross changing table in an over-crowded restroom. I have never been a fan of the public changing table, preferring to do quick stops and change him at home, but this was like a monumentally icky, not to mention logistically challenging, diaper change.

I gave the kid a quick pat on the butt. "Doesn't feel full," I announced, and Brian nodded. Scotty has been having these like, man-sized dumps as of late, so it's pretty obvious to know/feel when it's time to change him. Not to mention, the smell practically could make a grown man keep over in his tracks.

We both agreed that it must be just gas, and continued on to the gardens. Scotty gave no indication that he might be a little uncomfortable, so we stayed about 25 minutes before heading home (and not before getting our free chocolate sample. Mmm, free chocolate.)

As Brian loaded him back into the car, he grimaced again. "I think there's poop now," he said. No worries, we decided; we'll be home in less than 10 minutes and can change him then. Not ideal, but not the end of the world, either. And again, Scotty was acting like a normal, happy kid. His little eyes were starting to look a little sleepy, but that was about it.

So after we got home, I gave him another little pat on the butt. Nothing solid. I actually contemplated letting him play for a little while, but since the clock was clicking close to 7:30, we decided it was time for sleepy-time.

Brian, unbeknownst to him, made the best decision of the night by stopping in our bedroom first while I took Scotty into the nursery to get him ready for bath time. My first indication that something was wrong happened when I unbuttoned his little denim jeans and they didn't move. It felt like they were stuck to his body with a thick paste. I yanked and pulled and finally they came off -- but not until I realized there was poo all the way down his leg.

"BRIAN!" I screamed. "GET IN HERE!"

Now, we need to note that Scotty hasn't had very memorable poops in his lifetime. He's never had a blow-out poop that actually came out of the diaper. Probably his most notable poop was when he was three months old and poop came shooting out of his butt at 40 mph while I was changing him. But it was like, 3am and I wasn't sure if it had really happened until I noticed poop on lamp shade. And then of course, there was PoopGate, where he famously didn't poop for 11 days. But that's about it. No poop in the tub. No poop without a diaper on. It's literally been drama-free on the poop front for months.

Until this night.

I took off his socks and realized there was poop caked on them. I grabbed about 30 wipes and began the arduous task of wiping poop out of every crevice on his body, including the front of the diaper (how did it get in the front?) while Scotty kicked and giggled and acted like this was the most fun he'd had all day. He reached down several times and actually touched some of it, so then I began scrubbing poop off of his hands while trying to clean his little behind. I couldn't pick up any corner of the diaper without touching the poop myself, and so I found my hands coated in poop. There was poop on my jeans, my sweater, on the changing table, and all over the baby.

It felt like this was the Medusa of poops - no matter how hard I worked, the poop seemed to grow bigger and stronger and cover more surface area despite my best intentions.

It was a fecal nightmare. I continued screaming throughout this unholy process. I'm not sure what Brian thought was going on, but he came running like the house was on fire as I yelled to him to get the bath started. Just when I thought I had finally cleaned up every blessed piece of brown matter, I set him on the ground only to realize it had run up his back.

Holy hell.

Another 30 wipes later and he looked mostly clean. I handed him over to Brian since the bath water was finally ready and I promptly headed downstairs to burn our clothing in the yard.

When I realized...

...we are out of wipes.

Completely. Not a single wipe in the house...at 8:30. On Christmas Eve.

I saved this news for Brian until we had a sweet-smelling, pink & clean baby freshly dressed in his Christmas jammies. (Fat Boy, of course.) Brian took the news well and ever the dutiful husband, put his coat on and headed out in search of wipes. My hopes of sitting quietly by the Christmas tree and admiring the lights were dashed as the husband headed out the door.

So instead I played a game on the iPad and drank half a bottle of wine by myself.

Yay, Christmas. (FYI: Babies-R-Us is closed on Christmas Eve, as is Wal-Mart. Walgreens was open and Brian bought three packages. He wasn't sure what kind to buy, so he bought the ones with a panda on the front.)

If I thought six months was great (which I did), I think 16 months is even better. It's just such a fun time in my life (and Scotty's) since every day, he picks up something new and different. And he's so funny! His little personality is really coming out, and I think he's going to be a bit of a jokester.

With 16 months came the one-nap-a-day schedule, so the fight over naptime has finally, blissfully, ended. We called a truce and decided that he will go down around 11:30, usually after lunch. Or during lunch, which was the case today.

Passed out Bear

Yes, that is a fork in his left hand. Near his eye.

Mother of Year, right here.

The poor kid was sleep-eating his bananas. Or ba-bas, as he calls them.

(I usually don't miss his sleep window like this, but I wasn't expecting him to literally pass out in the high chair. We hustled it up to bed and he's snoozing away as I type this.)

Anyways, when he's not passing out from sheer exhaustion, he's being down right adorable. And I feel like I can shamelessly brag about that since I know in approximately 4-6 months, I will not be extolling cutesy stories about the Bear but will be bemoaning the struggle for independence he and I will be locked in. So yeah, let's enjoy the good times now.

We attended this very fancy, very adult party last Sunday at the home of one of Brian's partners. We had gotten the okay to bring the Bear, but considering 1.) the house was not baby-proofed (the couple has adult children), and 2.) there were 15 Christmas trees located throughout the property, which included open flames on the patio next to the non-gated infinity pool, I really thought we would last no more than 12 minutes before Scotty had a meltdown, fell in the pool, or toppled a tree. But he did great! His behavior went beyond my wildest expectations. He waved at everyone, worked the room, and actually listened to me when I said, 'One finger!" when it came to touching the ornaments on the Christmas trees. He really did just extend one little (grubby) finger and gently touch each (shiny, very expensive) ornament. And then promptly shouted, "Ball!" to whomever was listening.

See? This is a great age. He has a really strong desire to please us and if we tell him he's a good boy, he will repeat the behavior over and over again, just to get the praise.

and his little vocabulary is growing at an alarming rate. I asked him to show me "the bells," a word we haven't discussed, and he picked up the bells and jingled them. Same for his little plastic egg, the bath water, bubbles, and his blocks. The kid is listening...really well. Yikes.

And finally, as I mentioned earlier, his sense of humor is just adorable. He's now walking backwards, and he finds it just hysterical to be in a doorway, walk backwards out of it, and then come running back in, as though he's saying, "Gotcha! I'm still here!" He turns on Brian's radio every morning and dances and spins to the music. He shakes his little booty. And if I say, "Up down!" he does squats.

I wish I could freeze him at this age. He's just such a love (and so kissable!). I keep telling myself, the sweetness will continue...I'll just have to look for it a little harder when he is fighting me or talking back...but I do love 16 months. Best age ever.

No, not the kind that shapes his head into a better, rounder head; his head shape is just fine. I'm looking for the kind that protects kids from head injuries as a result of general toddler clumsiness.

And clearly I'm not the first parent to feel the need to wrap my child in bubble wrap, since I found this after a quick Google search (key phrase: "my kid keeps falling"):

(photo courtesy of One Step Ahead)

The little kid even looks like our Bear. Is it the chubby cheeks that make them so unsteady on their feet? The button nose? Who knows??

Baby helmet wearers, unite!

Back to the original point of this post. I'm done. Done with the constant falling on his face/head/nose/chin/noggin. Done with the fear that grips my little heart every time this kid face-plants on whatever object that is closest (a shelf, a table, the ground, cement). I'm done with the constant worry that his brain may be bleeding or swelling or doing something else it isn't supposed to. And so, my child will be wearing a helmet. Everywhere.

Yesterday was an absolute classic example of my turmoil. Scotty and I were at the park, waving to other kids and enjoying the 70 degree weather, when he decided to head over to the picnic area. Yes, you read that correctly: the picnic area. Not the scary slides or the giant tumbler thing, but the picnic area. And as he was walking, he just randomly tripped over a tiny pebble and came crashing to the ground, but not before slamming his little, adorable forehead into one of the metal picnic table benches.

Argh.

My heart just about stopped. It happened in slow motion, as these things do, and my arm was of course 1.3 seconds to late to catch him. Boom, crash, right into hard metal and within milliseconds there was a large, red welt. I hightailed it out of the park, ready to run red lights to get home (because nothing follows up one head injury than a car crash) in my quest for ice. He screamed the whole time, and then screamed louder as I held the ice to his head for five excruciating minutes. Within twenty minutes, there was barely a bump, but I feel like the image of my child falling forward has been permanently seared into my brain.

I'm not the kind of mom (if you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know this) that believes a kiss makes it all better. I'm more along the lines of an MRI and full neurological evaluation to feel comforted. Call me the Jack Shepard of Motherhood, but I want answers grounded in facts. Screw this whole intuition thing -- I spent two hours post-fall staring at Scotty, shining lights in his eyes, trying to get a grasp on his mental status while monitoring him for any loss of consciousness, vomiting, or seizures. (thank you, Dr. Awesome, for disclosing the three hallmarks of a head injury to me. I repeat them to myself over and over again.)

Today, there is barely a bump, and I know most of you are thinking, "He's going to fall again. You need to get used to it." Yes, I know that. But that's why he's going to be in his helmet. :-)

We seem to have reached a point in Scotty's young life where sizes are hard to judge, since they do not fit true to size. What I mean by this is that his proportions are very...um, large. But yet he remains small, at least in stature.

Remember when he was three months old and I was talking about shopping at my fictional, though ideal, Husky Baby store? I really think this might be the next great idea. Scotty's chubby little belly and fat thighs are not the exception, and I bet there are tons of parents out there buying 2 and 3T sized clothing for their 15 month olds. When you have a child who's head circumference expands over 20 inches (Cousin Ben, I am also looking at you), shopping for clothing with the right cut and fit is tough. Really tough.

Our biggest issue? Pajamas. I've read the books (and the tags on the clothing) to know that jammies are supposed to fit "snugly" as to avoid any kind of bunching up during sleep. The bed clothes Scotty has been wearing lately certainly fit those requirements. However, it is downright laughable to see his little belly protruding from under his shirt, or to pants clinging to his legs like pantyhose. I know they mean snug as in "close", not "squeezed sausage in a too-small casing." And we can't even get the darn tops over his gigantic melon of a head. The fit for both tops and bottoms were so bad I considered snipping both the arm openings and the neck opening just to give my boy some breathing room, but then I worried if the cuts would fray and he would actually be able to wiggle himself out of his pajamas during the night. So for the last few weeks, we reverted to putting him in regular, soft shirts with comfy pants so the kid could get a good night's sleep.

Alas...what is a husky baby to do? Wear regular clothes to sleep in since society is not ready for your insane chubbiness?

But then on Monday at Target, I ran across a few items that I can only think of as "Fat Boy Jammies." They are a 2T, so yes, they are long in the leg, but they have wider openings and a looser fit in the trinity of baby proportions: the all-important arms, legs and head openings. It's like someone in some Target manufacturing plant said, "Hey! I bet not all babies are lithe, svelte creatures. I bet some of them are chubby and like to eat cheese! Let's make some pajamas for the Every Baby! The American Baby! The...(dramatic pause)...Husky Baby!"

And Fat Boy Jammies were born.

Thank goodness.

I'm pretty happy with this discovery. And while we still have to roll the pants (since our little tyke is less than 32 inches, but practically 32 inches around), at least he can breathe a little easier at night. Even better, instead of wrestling Scotty into his pjs like a greased-up pig, we are able to glide his little porky body parts into his Fat Boy Jammies like butter. (mmm, butter.) He looks happier, less confined, and we shaved a solid 6 minutes off the bedtime routine. And best of all, he's actually wearing pajamas, not regular shirt and pants, officially making us not white trash.